President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened enemies of the state with a revolutionary government. He faces so many problems—insurgency and illegal drugs among them. So now I ask again: Will he, or won’t he?
Some lawyers’ groups are saying that it has no basis in law and the Constitution will not allow it.
Of course it is outside the Constitution! It’s precisely a dictatorship! The President would have the power to abolish Congress, the Supreme Court, and local government units. This was what the late President Corazon Aquino did after she assumed office in 1986, post-Edsa.
Note that former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, the architect of the Marcos Martial Law in 1972, has said that President Duterte is facing more serious problems than the late strongman President Ferdinand E. Marcos did.
Marcos had only the communist insurgency and the Moro independence movement, the Duterte administration has the IS-inspired Maute, Abu Sayyaf Group, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, New People’s Army, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, militant groups and an opposition salivating for a return to power.
A revolutionary government may send chills down the spine of many Filipinos. But I do not think Mr. Duterte, tough and volatile as he is, would go through with it. He knows the consequences of his act.
To do this, he must have the support of the police and the military.
He also ought to know that when one becomes a dictator, he would ride a tiger from which he cannot get off. It will devour him. He also ought to know that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I don’t think he would be as foolhardy.
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Former newspaper publisher Teddy Boy Locsin Jr. is now permanent ambassador to the United Nations. He opposed the government’s vote against the UN draft resolution to help the Rohingya minority. He said isolating and ensuring Myanmar would worsen the problem.
Will the President now fire Locsin? Recall that President Duterte asks appointees who do not agree with him to resign.
Actually, Locsin is correct since abstention from that issue like what Singapore did was the best alternative. Other countries in Southeast Asia may have noted against the UN draft resolution with Muslim majority Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia, but considering the implications of a no vote, abstention should have been an alternative.
According to Locsin, the country should have abstained from the UN vote in deference to the Muslim and non-Muslim member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. It is right thing to do, he said.
The Rohingya issue is a complex one and that a plain no vote would not show our solidarity with other nations to protect human rights.
Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque himself said that the Philippines is concerned over the humanitarian situation in Myanmar. We acknowledge that Myanmar has addressed the issue.
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Whenever there are calls for any official appointed by the President to resign, it’s always the same invocation that they will only resign if the President tells them to resign. Soon after, the President’s spokesman says that official still enjoys the trust and confidence of the President.
Santa Banana, what about the people’s faith and confidence in a public official for neglecting his job? Doesn’t that count?
It does seem that the loyalty of appointive officials is only to the appointing power.
The same was true during the BS administration. Nobody wanted to resign because almost always, BS Aquino would say he still had trust and confidence in his appointee. Change? The more people talk about change under President Duterte the more things remain the same, my gulay!
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Municipal jails in Metro Manila and the provinces are congested. Living conditions there are sub-human.
And with over a million surrenders now packed in those jails, it can only remind me of the black hole of Calcutta.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre should make the decongestion of jails a priority. Or does he have other things on his mind, even though the senatorial election is months away?
Prison facilities are supposed to rehabilitate criminals. But how can inmates be rehabilitated when they are treated like pigs?
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The impeachment case against Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno gets more interesting as days go by.
Now, the Chief Justice is saying that the impeachment against her is a threat to democracy.
Sereno claims that all the cases filed against her are non-impeachable offenses under the Constitution. But if this is true, she should welcome all the charges against her. She would be given her day in court!
She must be told that even her predecessor was impeached, convicted and ousted for a non-impeachable offense like not declaring his dollar accounts in his SALN or Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth.
The problem here is that impeachment is a political exercise, not a court trial.